DVD racks that have no moving parts, in the form of vertical towers or horizontal cabinets, are known. When a large quantity of DVDs are stored in such towers or cabinets, it can be difficult to display and select a desired DVD, especially if the desired DVD is stored in the lower portion of a vertical tower.
Applicants' parent application disclosed a motorized compact disk (CD) storage device or rack that can store many CDs or the like in a rotatable rack and that can rotate the CDs until the desired CD appears. When the desired CD appears, rotation can be stopped and the desired CD removed from the rack.
Notwithstanding that the disclosed rack could store a great many CDs or other objects and has met with great consumer success, there is a need for a rack that can store DVDs. Further, since DVDs are often used in an environment with subdued ambient lighting, there is a need for a DVD rack that can illuminate DVDs retained by the rack, for ease of selection in such an environment. There is a need to promote such ease of use by, for example, providing an option for hand-operated and/or foot-operable variable speed, and variable direction, and stop and go operation of the rack. Enlarging the holding capacity of such racks typically requires a larger base, for reasons of stability. However enlarging the base can require a larger carton in which to ship such racks, thus adding to the overall cost of bringing the product to the marketplace. Thus, there is a need for base mechanism that provides the requisite stability for a rack, yet does not require a larger shipping carton. Further such rack should provide an option to automatically cease rotation upon scan code recognition of a DVD or other retained object, or upon voice command from a user. Finally, it is preferred that such rack have the ability to be electronically daisy-chained to other such racks.
Unlike CD jewel boxes, DVD boxes are commonly manufactured in two different configurations. A first common DVD box configuration is an Amaray Safe Box. The Amaray Safe Box is a 7.52″×5.35″×0.6″ box that has a push-button locking tray hub for easy disc release, and clamps for multi-page booklets. A second common DVD box configuration, often known as a Snapper Box, is similar to the Amaray Safe Box, but is 7.47″×5.58″×0.53″ in size. A motorized rack to hold DVD boxes preferably should be able to store both sizes of DVD boxes. Further, as the holders for the DVD cases are necessarily larger than holders for CD cases, it would be desirable to ship the rack with such holders in a compact format, thus saving on the cost of the container that holds the rack and in shipping costs. The present invention provides such a rack.